Diabetes consequences in the fetus liver of the non-obese diabetic mice

DM type 1 (T1D) incidence is increasing around 3% every year and represents risks for maternal and fetal health. The objective of this study was to explore the effects of diabetes on fetus liver cells in non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice. Hyperglycemic NOD (HNOD), normoglycemic NOD (NNOD) and BALB/c females were used for mating, and the fetus livers were collected at 19.5 gestation day (gd). HNOD group had reduced fetal weight (989.5 +/- 68.32 vs 1290 +/- 57.39 mg BALB/c, P < 0.05) at 19.5 gd and higher glycemia (516.66 +/- 28.86 mg dl(-1), P < 0.001) at both 0.5 gd and 19.5 gd compared to other groups. The protein expression of albumin (ALB) was significantly reduced in HNOD group (0.9 +/- 0.2 vs 3.36 +/- 0.36 NNOD P < 0.01, vs 14.1 +/- 0.49 BALB/c P < 0.001). Reduced gene expression of ALB (1.34 +/- 0.12 vs 5.53 +/- 0.89 NNOD and 5.23 +/- 0.71 BALB/c, P < 0.05), Hepatic Nuclear Factor-4 alpha (HNF-4a) (0.69 +/- 0.1 vs 3.66 +/- 0.36 NNOD, P < 0.05) and miR-122 (0.27 +/- 0,10 vs 0.88 +/- 0.15 NNOD, P < 0.05) was present in HNOD group. No difference for alpha-Fetoprotein (AFP) and gene expression was observed. In conclusion, our findings show the impacts of T1D on the expression of ALB, AFP, HNF-4a and miR-122 in fetus liver cells by using NNOD and HNOD mice.